The devil you know

She fell on the ground, near the metal forest where it all begin. Sky still sleepy black here.

Karaza checked the seeds in the golden apple, two out of six seeds left which meant one last teleportation left.

She looked around, a little village, huts and stables made out of metal branches. Reflected light attacked her eyes from mirrors attached to nearby tree trunks.

Some unthreatening uproar made her turn around. A handful of bandits were knocked out on the ground, others were cornering certain someone combing her pastel orange hair in a mirror.

"S-SURRENDER!" The cautious shouts didn't phase her.

"Pleassse, my hair is matted give me a minute!"

"AND where did you spawn from?" A bandit asked the human, swords already drawn.

"Wait, Don't get closer to her!" One guy shouted.

"What?" Another asked.

"A chick with a hatchet? The one who beat us in the past!" He reminded.

More people drawn their weapons, the parasite detangled her hair quicker with a comical interest in the human's situation.

"Are you sure? I remember that chick with green hair and a flowery dress, like a granny's sofa."

"It's a chick, with a hatchet! Get the memo!"

Karaza stood there comically bored while the past outfit description earned Roxy an approving hum, which she quickly denied.

"You know.. calling my girl a hatchet is what got y'all beaten before." She deadpanned, rolling her shoulder, walking towards them.

The two arch nemesis walked out of the village, an entire village is knocked out.

"Wet wipes?" The parasite offered to the muddy human who looked at the bag with flowery sent and cute characters on it.

"It's a waste on me."

"Freshen up you edge lord!"

Only Roxanne knew she was taken aback with the genuinity of the tone that carried those words.

With the knowledge that Karaza treated her weapon like a cherished stuffed animal Roxy chirped about her knifes and their names.

"I felt like you were one of us! What's her name?" She stared at the axe but didn't let the human answer.

"This is my first knife, humans call it Italian stiletto, the kind sailors gave it to me when I was small. His name is Reggie! The stickers on him still holding up."

"And this is Reema, I got it from the painting I was stuck inside. Do you have other axes?" She asked childishly while displaying her weapons, at this point Karaza knew that humoring her is the way to go.

It's unproductive to ponder Whether it was a tactic to know her weapons or genuine curiosity.

"No, only this one." She moved her axe, each crack on it stored a story.

"I still don't know what to name this one though." She took the paper like dagger, useless stabs on her own thigh and hand, disappointed with the none existent damage.

She aimed it slowly toward the humans arm, earning her a half hearted slap on the wrist.

"Don't sneak weapons on me, I'm too unstable for these jokes."

"Why do you think it's like that?"

The knifes flew back to the treasure box as both felt other's presence.

"It's been a while!" Roxy greeted.

"More like couple hours?" The seaweed man said, seashells people standing slightly behind him.

The tension in the air morphed into something else when light shined briefly, leaving behind a mirage of an oasis if an oasis was substituted with extremely white sand and a patch of light in the middle of it.

"There it is!"

"The salt desert."

A wooden sign appeared on the way to the destination.

'You may only enter with one foe of yours.' The sign read. Karaza squinted on the words longer than the others.

The three parties got closer to the mirage while the parasite was behind busy tinkering with the dagger.

They eyed each other in shameless suspicion.

Entering with a foe was a diplomatic way of saying you gotta choose who to fight for the lemon bowl, inside a place with unknown circumstances.

"Then we shall choose each other, isn't right sister?" The seashell leader told Karaza.

"I'm good."

'Why do I sound like a woman telling a persistent guy she's married?'

"Wrap it up, who goes in with who? " The seaweed man asserted, getting cranky.

Karaza shrugged in indifference, after the previous fight Karaza would prefer a one to one.

"Anyone is fine with me, none of you is a task anyway." The seaweed man scoffed while the walking plant is busy.

"Um, I think I'll dip. Consider it an apology or something." Roxy threw the frame to the seashells, still occupied with the dagger.

The seashells were about to start preaching so the human decided to cut her losses.

"I tell you what, I go with this clowny and you go with these pretentious balls."

"I just said I'm dipping." Roxy quietly noted while the human draged her like a kid to bedtime.

"Humor me and I'll tell you the dagger's problem." Karaza got a suspicious head tilt and temporary surrender.

"Would you choose this monster over your own people ?!" The feminine seashell integrated.

"My bad, you want her?" She lifted Roxy up from the collar to their side, offering. Acting this was seemed to drive them away.

'She pimped me in a heartbeat.' 

"No! Why would we?!"

"She's not so bad when you get used to her ."

"You would be over if she switched on you! The non humans can not be trusted!" The seashells leader told.

"You know, the devil you know is better that the one you don't. Don't learn that the hard way."

The seaweed man blinked slowly at that.

"Actually in Arabic the proverb sometimes goes as 'The devil you know is better than the human you don't'" Roxy supplied.

"No one asked." Karaza held her like a sack of potato and barged into the oasis, Roxy stayed like a kid distracted by a toy.

The salt desert was claustrophobic for a desert, the illusions of the ever stretching white sand wasn't even trying to be convincing.

She saw the other two parties enter, but it's seemed like they opened the door to a next room, nowhere to be found with them.

The human stared at the entry for a good measure till nothing seemed to be coming their way.

The voices win when Roxy dug her fingers in the salt to taste it.

"Mmm salty."

In the midst of it the human was tiptoeing toward the end goal, aware of the disjointed pupils suddenly eyeing her neck.

In the other salt desert two iron frames were discarded on the ground, seashells smashed to pieces everywhere. The seaweed mad walking out of the mirage, a fragment of human pupils caught the light as the seaweed partially unraveled. A consequence of the fight.

"I think I learned how to live now."